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The Ballard Group

On Sunday, Emily and I joined “up the street,” as she calls our closest friends, at a bus stop on 32nd NW to take #17 to the rally and peace march at Westlake Center on the 4th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. Our party included one twelve year-old hoping that a trip downtown would include a visit to the Adidas store. One sixteen year-old was absent, perhaps he went with others, but at this age and stage he wasn’t with his mother, father and brother. From across the aisle I described a potato tortilla that Emily had made us for dinner the night before, a stranger commented that it sounded delicious.

I was pregnant during “Operation Desert Storm” but that war ended before my daughter was born. Four years ago the adults at the table tried not to talk about the invasion as Emily blew out twelve candles on her birthday cake. Four years is a very long time; too long.

My mother tells stories of rationing during World War II and I’ve watched “Mrs. Miniver,” “Casablanca,” and “The Best Years of our Lives” enough times to know that the Vietnam war was nothing like either World War. I feel like the majority of Americans are not directly affected by the fact that we are at war. No air raid wardens, no draft, no blackout shades, no Victory Gardens, tin drives or ration cards. Those who are directly affected, with parents or children in Iraq or Afghanistan, whose family members have died or been injured must suffer horrible scars, and probably feel isolated from the mainstream of Americans who carry on with mundane everyday life. As if we weren’t at war. We are at war.

My friend’s husband Chip is quite tall and able to hold his arms up for long periods of time, a combination that makes him invaluable when sheet rocking a ceiling – and very useful during a rally. He was holding a rather battered sign from the Ballard Peace Activists that says Ballard Chooses Peace with the image of a Norse boat. He was a magnet for Ballardians seeking other Ballardians. Right off the bus a small, elegant woman approached Chip and asked if he knew where the Ballard group was meeting. We explained that we weren’t members, and had no clue. At the same crosswalk I spotted two other mothers from book club; the rest of their family members too busy to attend.

As we stood at the rally and listened to speeches and songs there was a slow trickle of women approaching Chip, getting his attention, and asking questions, “is the group still meeting at that church?” “Could he see the Ballard Peace Activists banner anywhere?” I saw the first woman still standing alone, “were you supposed to meet up with others here?”

“Not specifically,” she said. “I just thought I would find others from Ballard, or at least other like-minded people.”

“Well, you can hang with us,” I told her. And so she did, even after she recognized a friend from Ballard who joined us as well.

It seemed wrong to wonder if there would be so many families and groups at Westlake Center if it was raining, instead of so warm and fair. At last the march itself began – from 4th Avenue west to Second Avenue, past the Federal Building and then looping back around to return on Fifth Avenue to the north. Tibetan monks walked near us, mournfully beating a drum. As always there was an assortment of ages, sizes, tattoos, placards, banners, bullhorns, songs and dogs. Along the sidewalks were the bicycle cops keeping pace, the motorcycle police blocking the intersections and police on horseback at the rear. Chip kept the sign aloft as he strode along. Several times I saw the two women quicken their step to follow and heard one say, “We need to stay with our Ballard group.”

One of our book club asked our new friends, “is this your first peace march?” as though it might be, because they were older than us. “Oh, no,” the woman replied, “I haven’t missed any since before the war started.”

It is a wonderful thing to be able to walk down the middle of Second Avenue without cars. To look up at buildings on either side, people in the windows and doorways, feel the wind off the water as it comes up the side streets from Puget Sound. It is a wonderful thing to have the streets belong to people’s feet for at least a few hours throughout the year. A news helicopter hovered; we stood taller the better to be counted. That’s what attending a peace march is about for me, and probably for my friends as well. We want to show that we know that we are at war. We rally to show that we are not oblivious to the suffering, and we want it to end, just as no parent would wish their child to be ill or in danger.

There was no sign of another Ballard group so at some point it became our group of nine. We did what women do – we talked about things that made us cry, we laughed over how Chip always gets so far ahead. Back at Westlake Center we broke into separate directions abruptly, needing to return to homework and grocery shopping, the other family members, the Driver’s Ed class carpool. Emily and I begged a ride back with our new acquaintances, Carol and Janice, meanwhile discussing changes in Ballard. Did it start with building the first condominium by the Post Office? Will we look back and say it was approving the Safeway Gas Station? Carol made the sharp right at the end of Ballard Bridge and then the right and right to go west beneath the Ballard Bridge; the insider’s route to Sunset Hill.

Back on the block a quiet Sunday afternoon continued. Neighbors were still outside weeding and mowing; the little boys across the street drawing with chalk. “I’ll call you before I go to the next peace march,” our driver called to us.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.